The Migration to Mobile II -- The Second Screen, or Is It the Fifth?

“Second screening” has interested me from the advent of mobile. I used to think I was too old to watch TV with a mobile device in hand—that it was just for Gen Y and below. However, now even I find myself doing it along with a lot of others—amazing!

So first the terminology. It’s not standard, but this is general usage. TV was the first screen, the desktop computer the second. The third was the cellphone (now the smart phone) with the fourth being the tablet. The Pew chart shows the increase in ownership of various mobile devices and the corresponding decline in desktop ownership.






eMarketer recently quoted data suggesting that connected cars would provide the fifth screen. That is quite a challenge for marketers and their content! I do hope, however, that cars will be driving themselves before drivers start, for example, start browsing the Internet from their car’s dashboard!

What’s important is that behavior is changing right along with ownership as I pointed out last week. It’s safe to summarize that communication is still most important but brand-related activity continues to grow. Actual shopping, not so much. However, recent Nielsen data indicates that consumers are likely to research on smart phones and purchase on tablets. So second screening is taking place even within the growing mobile shopping space.


Three recent event illustrate what is happening and how brands, teams and people can benefit. See these summary infographics:

The Summer Olympics
The Super Bowl
The Oscars

All had their own issues. Olympics social media activity was overwhelmed by viewer angst about NBC’s coverage (#NBCfail). The Super Bowl had that power outage—what else did viewers have to do except tweet about it? The Oscars have taken heat in the past for not doing a good job with social media. This year the level of social media activity was less than that of the Super Bowl and the Grammys according to Mashable.

The Grammys seem to do a consistently good job of self-promotion. Here is their advice for other event producers:
1. Be semi-obnoxious, promoting platforms and hashtags at all opportunities.
2. Tell your audience what they will get for following you on social media. In the case of the Grammys that included behind-the-scenes coverage and unique content.
3. Let your audience know you are listening. That takes a trained social media team at work during the event.
4. Spell it out. See Number 1! The Grammys used the transitions to ads to promote platforms, sites, etc. often using their celebrity presenters to do so.
5. Be active on social media during your event. More than listening, have proactive official posts and tweets to encourage engagement.
6. Think about social media long before the event. The Oscars actually did a good job of that. Consumers were fairly accurate in predicting Oscar winners.
7. Use social media to help the viewer keep up. Use captions, crawlers, etc. to list platforms and hashtags, making social engagement easier.

Whether it’s a brand-related event, a business conference, or a non-profit activity, the work it takes to integrate social media can pay off handsomely in visibility!